9.26.21: A Sick Patient and The Poison Drip

The Democratic party is like a sick patient that doesn't realize that the remedies for what ails it are right there in front of its face, while it inexplicably continues to accept the poison drip from the Republicans.

The demand from the progressive side of the Democratic caucus that the reconcilliation bill, which The Cook Political Report's Amy Walter rightly explained doesn't have a name nor identity, must pass first before the infrastructure bill is only causing delays filled with uncertainty of whom stands where jeopardizing the passage of both.

Even without progressive and moderate Democrats at an impasse, the Biden Administration's agenda was always going to be at risk, but as the Democrats are wont to do, they make it harder on themselves. And then there is Dr. Strangebrew, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) administering the debt ceiling poison pill to threaten the faith and credit of the United States to pay its bills. Chuck Todd asked Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) if the failure of crafting bipartisan police reform legislation and Senator Tim Scott's (R-SC) rhetoric about Democrats being unwilling to changing their stance of 'defunding the police,' which Senator Booker refuted, explaining that there is no call for that in the bill, came from someone higher up in the party, like McConnell. Senator Booker to his credit didn't engage in any partisan accusations and declined to speculate, but please...

Senator Republicans move, follow and speak at the discretion of the Senate Minority Leader. And the longer the Democratic party sits illin', with inaction, the mad doctor McConnell will find an excuse and a way to kill infrastructure as well.

Ms. Walter also mentioned that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is a firm no vote on the $3.5 trillion reconcilliation bill, but has yet to come forward with a number that is acceptable to him. With all due respect to Mr. Manchin, as a senator you created a problem and didn't come to the table with a solution, which doesn't get anyone anywhere. You're either part of the solution, part of the problem, or part of the landscape. Credit to Ms. Walter once more for quoting Mike Tyson to sum it up: Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face, and the Biden Administration keeps taking the jabs right in the eye.

The strychnine for democracy that is the former president keeps doing his part to coerce Republican state legislatures to do sham recounts to continue his poisoning of our democratic system by eroding faith in the process. (Why do we get that sinking feeling that when this all comes to a head, it's going to be truly 'fugly.' And though we appreciate Meghan McCaine reiterating that she thinks the former president is a Godzilla under the water, she is too dismissive and appeasingly nonchalant about the threat he poses. We guess she didn't catch the interview right before she came on with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who as Chuck Todd put it, reported on a failed coup attempt.

Sometimes the mess becomes much worse before you can get it all cleaned up, which is where the Biden Administration is right now, and the Democrats in Congress need to get their act together and lend a hand, heal themselves and heal a nation. Question is: Who's got the antidote? 

Come to think of it... Even if they had the antidote, half the people wouldn't accept it anyway. 

Panel: Meghan McCaine, The Daily Mail; Eddie Glaude, Jr., Princeton University; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Leigh Ann Caldwell, NBC News

9.19.21: The Summer of Delta Ahead of Our Winter of Discontent

Is it just us or is it that when you actually listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci explain things, it's really not that complicated. The Biden Administration has put a plan in place to roll out booster shots according to FDA guidelines, which informs the CDC. Right now, the FDA is reccommending booster shots for people over 65 years old and individuals who work in high risk occupations, like ICU personnel or with unlying health conditions. 

In the meantime, Dr. Fauci explained that the the first priority is to get as many of the 70 million Americans who are unvaccinated vaccinated. Being optimistic, Dr. Fauci explained that if we can get a great number of those people vaccinated, we may not have a bad winter.

But knowing what we know and having seen what we've all seen, many of those people will not move from the status in which they are now. If we maintain the status quo on the vaccination rate across the country, this is going to continue as the shadow of foreboding in the winter of our discontent.

We sincerely hope that it doesn't come to pass and the winter is indeed mild in terms of Covid-19, however suffice to say that confidence hasn't been inspired. 

Not only that, but as Anna Palmer explained, when Congress comes into session, there will be investigations on Afghanistan which isn't going away. Then there is the infrasture bill yet to pass and the albatross of the $3.5 trillion reconcilliation budget bill. Of the latter, it's vital to note the stupid and stupid: First, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) playing games with the debt ceiling is an abdication of responsibility and a feckless, dirt level move, of which he is widely known for. But most Americans aren't ever paying attention to the debt ceiling and it only ever becomes an issue when there is a Democrat in the White House. 

And Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has got the debt ceiling debate wrong, but admittedly, he leaves the debate in a state of twisted metal and glass. The debt ceiling accommodates money already spent, not what is coming down the line. Not to mention that Republicans during the previous administration suspended the debt ceiling vote so that a tax cut could be done on reconcilliation. Yeah, pretty harsh on the Republican Senator we happen to like. 

The other stupid is the Democrats including immigration into the budget bill, and this should be obvious, right? First, it just made the mountain that much steeper to climb to get it passed. But what really bothers is that it's tucked into a budget bill instead of being stand-alone legislation. Totally sends the wrong message. If Democrats want to appear bold and moving forward, they must put these bigger issues on their own pedestals. 

Between the persistence of the delta and congressional inaction and rhetorical fighting, one would be tempted to wish for a normal harsh flu season.

Panel: Anna Teresa Kumar, Voto Latino; Anna Palmer, Punchbowl News; Rich Lowry, The National Review; Jeff Mason, Associated Press

9.12.21: The Spirit of The Nation

There are other methods, other than vaccines, to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic despite the Biden Administration mandating vaccination for millions in public and private sectors. As discussed by Chuck Todd and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, instead of mandates, those other methods include masking and social distancing and testing to mitigate the spread. 

All of this was an academic conversation given that many Republican governors have banned mask mandates and have either remained silent about misinformation or spread it themselves, i.e. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Now Republican Governors are threatening to sue the Biden Administration for the mandates, to which the president has responded for them to 'bring it on.'

How that will go is that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the Governors, in line with the court's federalist nature. States will be able to decide for themselves if they want to mandate vaccines. But here's the rub: the virus doesn't recognize state borders and will continue to spread. That's simply a fact. And while the governors thrwart efforts to combat the virus, our hospital systems will be overwhelmed. In Florida and Alabama, hospitals and funeral homes have ordered mobile morgues to store the dead.

Fighting the pandemic is no more a matter of not being equipped, but one of the unwillingness of Americans to rise above their own selfish interests for the public good. And we're not saying that means one must be vaccinated, but if one decides not to be vaccinated, do practice some mitigation for the safety of you and your family.

As Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) explained, we allocated $5.4 trillion dollars in covid relief and all those monies haven't been distributed yet. So his argument for the $3.5 trillion budget is too much money to be spent at this time given the covid-relief allocation. Perhaps it's unworkable legislatively, but it the Democrats should work through a budget that covers the $3.5 trillion, but with a provision for a lesser amount to be implemented at first, then if the spending bill is doing what it's supposed to, implement the rest of the money in the second five years of the 10-year budget proposal. Whether that's a workable solution or not, something has to give. Yes, it is politics 101 to negotiate support for one bill to leverage another, but it will be unforgivable on the part of Democrats if they do not get the 'hard' infrasture bill passed. Nuances aside, that's how it will be perceived.

Senator Manchin also explained that there are a number of factors such as inflation, employment numbers and of course Covid that could effect spending and how the country can recover. But of all the possible factors you can think of, it all comes back to eliminating the pandemic.

With regard to commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I think about this past Thursday when 3,160 people died of Covid-19, more in one day than died on September 11, 2001. The spirit of coming together as a nation is being lost, as Mrs. Goodwin explained. How far we've come...

Panel: Hallie Jackson, NBC News, Kimberly Atkins Stohr, The Boston Globe; Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian; George Will, The Washington Post. 

9.5.21: A Working Joe in a Polarized America

Whether you approve or disapprove of how President Joe Biden is doing his job in this divided America, you have to concede that he's been a hard working, busy guy. Again, for good or ill according to your own assessment, but with that in mind, Mr. Biden's current approval rating hovers around 45 percent. 

To paraphrase PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, new administrations want to set their own agenda but real life situations and crises happen to set the agenda for them, which is certainly still the case on battling the pandemic. We agree with Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD) that the messaging from the White House, the FDA and the CDC has been poorly coordinated and confusing. (Best thing to do btw is to just check the CDC website.) However, responsibility for the record cases and a death count of one thousand five hundred Americans per day falls on all political leaders, obviously, because the Biden Administration has made the vaccine widely available and free while still encouraging people to get vaccinated. 

Outside of that, it's up to, frankly, Republican governors to act more like Governor Hogan and less like Ron DeSantis (R-FL). We're not going to go completely down this wormhole but Covid-19 infections and deaths will continue in this country unless we get past what Ms. Alcindor called our original sin of the pandemic, which was policizing masks and vaccines. 

Speaking of both, here's what we don't get... You see clips on the news you see someone without a mask threatening a school board member about mask mandates. This seems completely counterintuitive. If you're going to threaten someone in front of a camera don't you want to wear a mask so that they cannot identify and arrest you later, which is what inevitably happens. Take it as a bit of advice, but to protect yourself and others along the way of threatening people is a nice added bonus. Bottom line is that masks aren't a big deal, get over it.

And then there are the vaccines, which according to a number of people who have taken horse dewormer to fight Covid-19 and ended up in a poison control unit. We are not good at math, admittedly, but millions of people have taken the vaccine and have stayed out of the hospital and a few thousand have taken horse dewormer and have either gotten sick and or ended up in the hospital. Hmmmm... we'll take a moment to figure it out.

But in the meantime, there's reacting to real life and then there's acting in the face of extremism, which is exactly what Texas' new abortion bill represents. First, ninety percent of abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy because most women don't discover they are pregnant until after that time. This six week stipulation has effectively shut down women's health clinics that provide that care. This puts upon women an undue burden of access which as it stands is federally against the law. Having said all that, this column thinks of it in more base/ libertarian terms. A person, any person, has the right to control his or her own body and that should not be legislated. Men shouldn't legislate over womens' bodies and minds because they have no idea what they're talking about. If women passed a law that said men had to be castrated if found guilty of any rape or sexual assault, how do you think that would go over? None too well, we assure you.

But even if you're pro-life or pro-choice and feel that what we wrote above is a load of it, here's something else to consider. The Texas legislature took the coward's way out on enforcement, giving the task of caring out the law to citizens, which is like the Texas government saying we're too chicken to enforce the laws that we pass.  Instead they've opted for vigilante justice. An 'assinine' law is what Republican strategist Brendan Buck called. 

If this law is left to stand, one can only dread the consequences not to mention that surely in a year's time you'll tune into Texas Public Access Television and watch "Abortion Hunters in Texas" searching the Lone Star state for bounties, and a cottage industry is born. There you go polarized America, who said we can't contribute?

Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, PBS; Betsy Woodruff Swann, Politico; Matt Bai, The Washington Post; Brendan Buck, Republican Strategist